


Bruce was WRONG... Great.

by Magnoliachild



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bucky catches the human flu that everyone else had, Bucky goes under but we're ignoring A4, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Comfort, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sickfic, The Soldier likes Steve, The Soldier loves Steve as much as Buck, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, sick Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29935878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnoliachild/pseuds/Magnoliachild
Summary: Bucky catches the human flu that was going around the tower. Bruce had said that he was pretty sure that Bucky couldn't catch it. Welp, he was WRONG. And as Steve's luck would have it, a high fever causes the Soldier to come out, thankfully Steve had figured out that the Soldier trusted Steve at least a little bit. He also kinda liked Steve, so he works his magic and cares for the Soldier until the fever breaks and gives him his Bucky back.No big deal.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 51





	Bruce was WRONG... Great.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope that this makes sense. Honestly IDK. LMK what y'all think! I'm not super proud of this but that may be the sleep deprivation talking. LOL

Bruce had assumed that based on the knock off serum in Bucky’s system that he would be almost as immune as Steve is to everything. He had assumed WRONG. 

Steve will tell him this once he can get more than 50 feet away from his boyfriend without him needing something to help the Flu that was terrorizing his poor, battered body. Normally Bucky would’ve been fine, but they had just woken him up from cryo freeze after taking the words out of his system, and that was always when his immune system was weakest. It was Also the week that the unaltered humans of the group all got the flu.. Steve hadn’t worried about Bucky, and now he’s kicking himself over it. Hating the fever induced nightmares that Bucky has had anytime he tries to sleep through the sickness. 

Steve had been doing the basic steps that are required to care for the symptoms of the flu that Buck was dealing with, when after three days the exhaustion was kicking in even for the supersoldier, so he decided to nap. 

When Steve woke, it was to the feeling of being watched. He carefully stretches and ignores the crouched form of the Soldier for a solid minute, remembering what he has to do from before Buck went to cryo freeze and would have flashbacks that triggered the Soldier. 

He walks out to the bathroom and washes his face, hits the head because this usually takes a minute, and then washes his hands. He turns the heat up, so that he doesn’t shiver, and so that the Soldier’s tenseness doesn’t cause Bucky to be sore later. 

He strips down to his underwear in the hallway, throwing his clothes in the laundry closet, and then slowly walks into the bedroom, noting that the Soldier had moved from his cramped corner in the corner next to the bed where he could see Steve reenter the bedroom. Steve enters with his body hunched and non-threatening, and proceeds to slowly get to the floor in a sitting position, not moving quickly, just carefully. He’s learned that the Soldier prefers seeing his hands and face the most, but the rest of his body doesn’t matter as long as he can show that there are no weapons on him. 

So Steve sits on the floor for 15 minutes, legs crossed, hands palm up on his legs, and his face upturned and eyes closed, waiting for the Soldier to show that he understood that Steve wasn’t a threat. Eventually, Steve started getting sleepy, until he felt the slightest shift of air and realized that the Soldier was moving. 

“What is your role here?” the Soldier asked in a rough voice that was partially the training and mostly from the amount of coughing that Buck had done over the last three days. 

“I am here to take care of you.” Steve said carefully, words like watch, guard, or help were Very bad; those learning experiences had ended with a fair amount of bruises, multiple broken bones, and a 20 minute hand to hand fight respectively. 

“Why do I need maintenance?” 

“You are ill from a mission. They tasked me with getting you better. I am safe, you know me. We’ve done this before.” 

The Soldier tilts his head like he’s thinking about it, and then after a minute, he nods jerkily, “What do you need me to do?” Soldier asks, almost scared. 

Steve’s heart clenches because he knows why the Soldier is scared. “I’m going to stand up, walk over and touch your head, chest and back. Don’t hurt me.” Steve says exactly what he’s gonna do before moving a muscle, and waits for the little nod that is almost precious on the Soldier. 

Steve does exactly what he told the Soldier he was gonna do, seemingly confusing him. 

“What now Medic?” 

Steve shakes his head, and sighs, “Not medic, just here to care for you, my name is Steve, what’s yours?” 

“Soldier.” he states gruffly with a small shiver. 

“Would you rather me call you something else?” Steve asks carefully. Sometimes the Soldier will let him call him James. 

“Not right now. If you continue to not be a threat maybe.” 

Steve grins happily at that statement and nods at Bucky, knowing that this is good. 

“Well then, now that I have determined how high your fever is, I need you to take medication and drink something. I’ll let you take them out of the bottle and everything. I am going to go across the hall to the bathroom then the kitchen and get you a drink that you can open. Ok?” Steve asks, letting Bucky think it through. 

The Soldier nods and gestures with the metal arm, and let’s Steve go without following. Steve gathered everything that he said he would, making sure everything was sealed, including the brand new vacuum sealed cup so the Soldier didn’t think he was gonna drug him. 

Steve returns, announcing himself and turning his back to the deadly assassin in the corner of his bedroom, showing him that he wasn’t scared. He sets everything down and steps back a little letting the Soldier come closer without touching Steve yet. 

“Take two of the pills and drink half of the bottle. I got you a cup if you wanted. They’re all clean and individually wrapped so you know that it’s clean.” Steve tells him quietly so that Buck will actually take it. 

The Soldier looks apprehensive but does it anyway. “Now we wait 20 minutes to see if that has cooled you down. Can I touch you? I want to clean you off some.” 

The Soldier still looks worried but he nods and steps closer, letting Steve grab the pack of baby wipes off of the heating pad, so that he knows they were warm, and takes one out and slowly wipes off the naked upper body of the beautiful man in front of him. He looks for confirmation before he kneels down to get his legs, going as high as he can without removing the boxer briefs that Buck was wearing. Then he cracks as he stands and once again looks at Buck waiting on an answer to wipe his face. Steve slowly reaches out, wiping as much sweat off as possible and allowing Steve to gently wash his neck as well. 

They stand there for a few minutes and Steve can see that Bucky was starting to tilt sideways. He gently puts his hands up waiting for the Soldier’s eyes to follow them, and then he gently takes Bucky’s hips like he’s done thousands of times before and guides him to the bed. Normally the Soldier will sleep as long as Steve tells him that he’s keeping watch. This time, Bucky does something different. He pulls Steve into the bed with him. 

He lets the Soldier arrange him how he wants, which is apparently holding the Soldier cuddled close and covered up. Steve happily accepts the position, and only moves to grab his phone. This causes a groan and a tenseness from the Soldier. Steve shushes him and tells him what he’s doing. 

“I’m going to lock the floor down from the inside so no one can bother us, you’re safe here.” 

The Soldier mumbles something that still sounds disbelieving but allows himself to fall asleep on Steve’s chest. Steve reads on his phone for a while, still feeling tired himself, so he puts his phone under his leg so that he can feel any notifications and then tries to go to sleep. 

About an hour into his nap, Steve wakes up partially from the absolute fire that is radiating off of the Soldier, and mostly because of the small whimpers and movements from the body on his. Steve slowly adds pressure to the touch as not to startle Bucky, but pulls and rearranges the Soldier’s head next to his ear, so he can hear and try to understand any of the words that are coming out of Bucky’s mouth. 

After a minute Steve can tell that Bucky is repeating “Don’t, don’t wanna die, can’t die like this.” 

Steve takes a deep breath assessing what to call the man in front of him, knowing that Bucky would cause the Soldier to panic, Soldier would cause him to go deeper, so James it was. 

“James, James, you’re safe. Come back to me, come on up sweetheart, let me see your eyes.” Steve whispered words to Bucky, quickly feeling to see how high the fever was while Bucky wasn’t focused on him. After a minute or two, the body jerks and the Soldier sits up and stares at Steve blankly for 30 seconds until he processes what was going on. Steve nervously waits for Buck’s next move. He’s seriously shocked when the Soldier falls to his chest and lets Steve pet his hair. They lay like that calming down until Steve’s phone buzzes indicating a phone call. Bucky jerks looking panicked. 

“It’s not the guards. They’re not coming for you. They’d have to go through me. Understand?” 

Buck nods slowly and stays pulled away from Steve. 

“I’m gonna answer this, and see what they want. Take another two pills please?” Steve gently requests while slowly pulling his phone that had started buzzing again out. Bucky nods and does as Steve asks, and then much to Steve’s surprise lays back against him. Steve lets the breath he was holding out and answers the call from Clint.. 

“What do you want? I told JARVIS I was busy.” Steve says snappier than usual. 

“Was gonna ask how your boy-bot is doing, and see if you could help me with Wanda. She’s holding the fever and resisting meds.” 

Steve sighs, feeling bad for snapping, “Take a cold rag and lay it across the base of her head, then let her hands sit in cold water as well. Text me, not call, if it doesn’t come down soon. Sorry for snapping, I have a clingy and feverish assassin in my lap. I’ll call you when I've convinced him that the flu doesn’t mean he’s dying. Bye Clint.” 

Steve spends the next 20 minutes while the meds bring the fever back down, holding Bucky close knowing that it confused the Soldier, but Steve needed this as much as the Soldier did. 

“You can’t.” the Soldier says weakly. 

“Hmm?” 

“You can’t fall in love with me. I’m a monster. I know that. They told me that I am. I’ve killed people. I’m a monster that you can’t fall in love with.” 

Steve shakes his head and takes a breath thinking of exactly what he needs to say, “One you’re not a monster, two it’s too late for that. I don’t know how long you think you’ve known me, however, you’ve known me for a very long time, and I have loved you all of it.” 

Bucky shook his head viciously and Steve grabbed it and tucked it between his head and his shoulder and hushed the quiet tears, and told James to sleep, he’d be there when he woke up. 

Bucky fell right back out, and Steve debated on his plan of action. He needed Buck’s temp to cool down, preferable without the cold water that Hydra favored, and without having to move them too much. He hoped that Buck’s fever would be broken when they woke up. 

Thankfully, about two hours later, Steve woke up, and Bucky’s temp had dropped back to their normal. Steve brushed the hair aside and pressed a kiss to Bucky’s forehead, and waited for him to wake up. 

About an hour after Steve woke up, Bucky woke up and jerked his head up to meet Steve’s eyes. Steve looked at him thankful to see the emotion and the cloud of the Soldier is gone from Buck’s beautiful eyes. 

“Thank you.” Bucky whispered to Steve as he settled in even closer than before. 

“For what?” 

“For not being a product of my psychosis.” 

Once again Steve’s heart breaks, and he pulls Bucky closer, “I’ll always be real. From now on it will always be me. I know that I can’t make promises like that. However, I will do my damndest to make sure you don’t have to doubt that it’s really me.” Steve wipes his tears on his shoulder not wanting to let go of any part of Bucky just yet. 

They lay there wrapped together for a while longer before Bucky quietly tells Steve that he wants to take a bath. Steve tells the whining man that he really ought to rinse in the shower first so that they are not sitting in sweaty water. 

Bucky reluctantly agrees after Steve agrees to get in both with him. He doesn’t tell Stevie but the Soldier is still a LOT closer to the surface than he’d like, and keeping his love’s hands on himself is a good way to keep the Soldier back. 

They quickly wash in slightly warm water, Steve still reluctant to bring Bucky’s temp back up, then they get in the tub that had been filling up while they showered. Steve and Bucky both hiss at the hot water as they sink, both feeling days worth of tension release at least a little bit, knowing that they’d have to work their muscles out to actually get rid of the soreness. 

They lay back to front in the hot water till it cooled to body temp and then got out, glad that the tower’s bathrooms had built in wall heaters. They boys put on shirts and boxers and help each other and put on clean sheets. Steve doesn’t bother to start a load tonight knowing that it won’t get done for another few days, but he’s ok with that. 

They crawl into the bed of clean sheets, clean themselves from their shower, relaxed from their bath, and happy now that they are both present and ok. They talk until it’s too hard to speak between the yawns, and Steve pulls Bucky closer, lining them up like they did at camp with the Commando’s when Stevie was still trying to adjust to being as big as Buck, legs crunched, head tucked perfectly tucked under Bucky’s chin, and arms delicately draped over Bucky’s waist, and folded to feel Bucky’s heartbeat. Buck had shifted this familiar position a little over the years, to make sure that when Steve eventually straightened his legs they wouldn’t wake up, and that they had extra blankets to layer and overlap to avoid any cold coming in gaps. 

Bucky’s life hadn’t been great for the last 70 years, but honestly, days like this almost could make up for it. HIs best guy, bathes with heated tubs, blankets softer than anything he had ever felt, and his best guy, completely out of medical danger. Yeah things had sucked for a while, but this was good enough to help him get better. 


End file.
